Destiny 2 Cheat Maker Learns That $13.5 Million Is a Very Expensive Loot Box
Destiny 2 cheat programs led to a $13.5M Bungie lawsuit settlement for Elite Boss Tech over code injection.
Elite Boss Tech, a creator of Destiny 2 cheat programs, has discovered that Bungie’s lawyers do not merely send sternly worded emails; they send invoices with the enthusiasm of a dragon auditing a coin museum. The cheat maker agreed to pay Bungie $13.5 million, a figure that landed like a piano dropped by a very precise accountant. For anyone who assumed anti-cheat enforcement was mostly a stern forum post and a wagging finger, the settlement is a loud reminder that the invisible referee has a legal department, a calculator, and absolutely no sense of humor about code injection.
The lawsuit, reported by TorrentFreak, was filed by Bungie in August 2021. The allegations were not a light snack of legal complaints: copyright law breach, racketeering, fraud, and money laundering all appeared on the menu. The settlement math was less mystery novel and more vending machine. Bungie took the cost per violation, set at $2,000, and multiplied it by the number of times the software was downloaded, which was 6,765. The result was $13.5 million, a number that presumably made at least one accountant remove their glasses and clean them very slowly.
| Settlement item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total settlement | $13.5 million |
| Cost per violation | $2,000 |
| Downloads counted | 6,765 |
Bungie argued that the commercial viability of Destiny 2 depends on the integrity of its gameplay. Cheat programs like those created by the defendants threaten the experience of players, and anti-cheating countermeasures have cost Bungie what the filing described as exorbitant amounts of money. In other words, the game’s health is not maintained by wishes and space magic alone. It is maintained by engineers, servers, security systems, and an expensive little war fought in the background while Guardians are busy arguing about loot rolls.
The defendants attempted a legal pirouette. They argued that since no copies of Destiny 2 were distributed and no derivative works were created, their software did not violate copyright. It was the legal equivalent of arguing that a turnstile made of wet cardboard is not really an obstacle because nobody stole the cardboard. The argument did not need to win the day for the settlement to arrive. Elite Boss Tech ultimately decided to settle, and the liability was accepted by Robert James Duthie Nelson, Elite Boss Tech, and 11020781 Canada.
The settlement included an admission that the software injects code into Destiny 2, thereby creating an unlicensed work. That admission is the legal equivalent of a burglar leaving a handwritten note explaining the floor plan. There was also a proposed permanent injunction contained within the consent judgment. It would essentially forbid the defendants from creating any software for Bungie games, from participating in content creation, and from advising anyone on creating software that circumvents Bungie’s anti-cheat systems. In plain English: no more cheat programs, no more cheat tutorials, and no more shadowy consulting sessions conducted in the digital equivalent of a parked van.
This case was not an isolated skirmish. A joint lawsuit between Bungie and Riot Games netted the pair a $2 million settlement from Destiny 2 and Valorant cheat program creators. Nintendo, Activision, Epic Games, and Ubisoft have also filed lawsuits against third-party cheat developers in the past. Niantic, the creator of Pokémon GO, reportedly received a $5 million settlement from cheat creators in 2021. The pattern is clear enough to be printed on a coffee mug: studios are increasingly treating cheat software as a business threat, not as a naughty prank performed by someone with too much free time and a suspiciously fast aim.
At the time of the original report, the judge had not yet signed off on the consent judgment, though approval was expected. By 2026, the episode reads like a landmark cautionary tale in the long-running anti-cheat arms race. The details may be older, but the lesson has aged like a fine warning label. Cheat programs are not a harmless side door into a game. They are a crowbar wrapped in a trench coat, and courts are increasingly willing to treat the resulting damage as real.
For the ordinary player, the settlement is a reminder that the invisible referee is expensive. Every match that feels fair, every raid that does not collapse into a circus of teleporting hitboxes, and every competitive mode that retains a shred of integrity sits on top of costly security work. The cheat maker may have viewed its software as a clever shortcut. Bungie viewed it as a threat to the experience, and the legal system viewed it as a very large invoice with a download counter attached. 🎮💸
The consent judgment still needed a judge’s signature when the story first surfaced, but the broader message was already clear. In the Destiny 2 universe, players chase loot, titles, and impossible rolls. Outside the game, Bungie chased accountability, and the price tag came with six zeroes and a warning label. The cheat maker learned that the most expensive loot box of all is the one labeled legal liability.